


Eternity Loves the Creations of Time

by WritingPaperGhost



Series: Death Can't Bind Our Endless Story [1]
Category: Ultraman Mebius, ウルトラシリーズ | Ultra Series
Genre: Comedy, Fluff, Like really temporary, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:09:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28888881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingPaperGhost/pseuds/WritingPaperGhost
Summary: Mebius knew his friends on Earth would die someday, long before him. They were only human, after all. Mebius knew that. He knew that he would never truly know when the last time he saw them would be, but that hadn’t bothered him. Now, though...Now he was looking at an Ultra sprawled on the floor, previously just a strange light. The Ultra looked up at him and said his name in a familiar voice. His human name.
Series: Death Can't Bind Our Endless Story [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2118582
Comments: 24
Kudos: 34





	1. Ryu

**Author's Note:**

> I remember an idea like this tossed around the Side Space Discord, and then somehow I wrote this. Then I wrote five more chapters.

Ryu was the first to die.

They all expected that, though he was by no means the oldest - that was Sakomizu. But he was the one who continued to work for Crew GUYS, continued to be out fighting monsters. So they all knew that he was the one most likely to die first. They’d all accepted that, they’d accepted that anyone or all of them could die at any time.

So it wasn’t a surprise.

To be fair, at that point, it had been a good twenty or thirty years since Mebius first arrived on Earth. There had been a monster attack and Ryu, like always, intended to see it through. HIs team had enough experience, at that point, it shouldn’t have been any different than before. Yet somehow, this monster wouldn’t die.

Whether it was irony or dumb luck, the way Ryu died was familiar, if only to him. The monster was dead, sure, he just hoped that his team could forgive him, because while they would all walk away alive... He would not. But that was fine, he’d gladly die if they could continue to live, he was their captain, after all. 

He was confused, now.

Ryu was certain he was dead, he knew he shouldn’t have lived through that. To his knowledge, he was dead. He just wasn’t sure why there was still... something? Was this what death was like? A strange floating feeling and only a vague understanding of what was occurring. It was warm, at least, a nice, pleasant feeling.

There was something tugging at him, drawing him off in one direction. Ryu wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to follow it. So he did. He followed it and followed it and he wasn’t really sure how long he had, but the farther he went, the stronger the pulling feeling was. He was close enough now, to know it was familiar, but in that moment, he couldn’t place where.

It was so close now. So close he could almost reach out and touch it. So close and so familiar...

He’s not sure how it happened, but he has limbs now, and he’s lying on the floor, very confused. Above and in front of him, there’s a yelp. Off to the side, there’s a confused noise. Ryu attempted to push himself up off the floor, surprised that his limbs were protesting. Then further surprised because his arms were not supposed to look like that - they were red and silver. He looks up at the person in front of him, his shock growing even more.

Quietly, he says, “Mirai?”

\---

For Mebius, it had been a normal day. If anything, it had been a bit better than average day, Hikari was finally less tired! Mebius, of course, only knew this because he’d stop by to say hi. Now, he and Hikari were talking a bit.

Then they got talking about Earth and Crew GUYS and now Mebius was a bit sad. He tried to visit them when he could, but that wasn’t that often. And they were human, so even with the dangerous profession that involved directly fighting monsters, they would die long before him.

Now Mebius was a bit sad.

The subject changed again, though the sadness still lingered, and Mebius comments, “At least you finally got some rest.”

Hikari rolled his eyes, “I was fine.”

Before Mebius could comment anything in response, a strange light appeared. Though this place was called the Land of Light, spheres of light like  _ this  _ certainly weren’t normal. Then, the light took shape and there was a red and silver Ultra sprawled on the floor.

Startled, Mebius yelped, while behind him, Hikari looked over and let out a confused, but resigned noise. The Ultra on the ground put his hands on the ground to try to push himself up, though he paused for a moment. Then, the Ultra looked up at Mebius.

In a shocked but quiet tone, the mysterious Ultra says, “Mirai?”

It takes Mebius a moment to process what the new Ultra said. There was certainly something familiar about him, but Mebius wasn’t sure what. Especially since he somehow knew Mebius’ human name.

HIkari calls over, “Mebius, do you know him?”

The Ultra on the floor brings himself up and is standing now, peering at himself as though he was in a stranger’s body. He seemed very confused, which was fair because Mebius was confused too.

“I, uh, I don’t think so?” Mebius wasn’t too sure, though. Because though he’s certain he’d never seen this Ultra before, there was still... Something.

Finally, the Ultra speaks up, his voice certainly familiar, “I... Where am I?”

Walking over to the two of them, Hikari explains, “You’re in my lab,” Which only got him a confused, if strange look, from the Ultra. “In the Land of Light?”

The confusion that had plastered itself on the Ultra’s face only seemed to increase with Hikari’s words. Watching the way the Ultra looked around and looked at them, Mebius just still couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew this person from somewhere.

“I... I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” Mebius finally said, drawing the Ultra’s attention to him. The Ultra nods, shaking off just a bit of the confusion, it seemed. “Then who are you?”

He takes a moment to respond, but then he says, “I’m Ryu,”

Mebius decides that this day can’t get any weirder.

\---

After asking Ryu about what had happened, Hikari gave his expert hypothesis, “I have no idea,”

Ryu shrugged, indicating that he had no better idea or explanation. Beside Ryu, who still occasionally looked at himself - his new body, rather - in amazement, Mebius watched him. 

Finally, after Ryu had shrugged, Mebius said, “Well, I’m glad you’re here - er. well, I mean,” He stumbled to correct himself, “I’m not glad that you died - I guess - like that, but I’m glad that you’re still here.”

With a laugh at Mebius’ stutter, Ryu reaches over and wraps his arms around him, a content hug, “I get what you mean,” He said as Mebius returned the hug, “I for one, am glad to see you again.”

With all that out of the way, Mebius was excited to show his friend around, pointing excitedly at nearby buildings. Ryu, who was, to some extent, still reeling from the strangeness of the past few hours - how long had it even been? How long had Ryu been in that strange state of death and undeath? - Just nodded and let Mebius lead him around.

This soon led to the first real “problem” Ryu really had adjusting to his new body. “Mi- Mebius,” It was still taking him a moment to get used to actually talking with Mebius and calling him Mebius instead of Mirai, “I can’t fly.”

It took Mebius a moment to process the comment, “Huh?” Then he adds, “Oh, but you’re an Ultra now, so that’s a thing you can do!”

“Okay...” Ryu conceded, “But that doesn’t mean I know how.”

Mebius got a look that Ryu easily recognized as when he was thinking hard about something. After another moment, Mebius declared, “Well, I’ll just have to teach you.”

Ryu paused for a moment, “Uh, okay?” He shook his head, “Do you even know how to teach someone that?”

Mebius shrugged, “I’ve helped children with their flying,” He said, “This won’t be much different.”

“Sure...”

As it turned out, teaching Ryu to fly was not quite as easy as teaching children to fly. Mostly because Ryu was bigger and had a few more mental blocks to overcome. Ultra children knew that one day they’d learn to fly, human children did not. So for Ryu, the whole thing was still pretty weird, and he had been a pilot, he’d flown up high. It’s just... different when you’re the one physically flying and not some kind of plane.

It took a bit to get Ryu able just to float. Actually moving around was another story, though. At the moment, Mebius could, at the very least, effectively drag him around. That was what Mebius was currently doing, as Ryu attempted to get the hang of flying, as opposed to floating. Either way, it was probably a sight to see.

Mebius informed him that the act of bringing another Ultra around whilst flying wasn’t… Uncommon. It just… Was usually seen with children who couldn’t fly or could fly very well. Pretty much like when you carried a child. Still, Ryu supposed it could be worse. As it were, Mebius was just grabbing his hand and leading the way, more or less. Or tugging the way, more likely, like an excited child in a toy store.

It was a bit odd, though, to see Mebius so excited like this. It was always Mebius being excited while he saw and experienced Earth things, not Mebius being excited to show Ryu something. Ryu didn’t dislike it - it certainly brought a certain joy, though that might just be from seeing Mebius again - but it was certainly odd.

After a while - Ryu wasn’t really sure how long - Mebius comments, “Oh, there’s something I need to go do.” Mebius takes them to some building or another - Ryu just knew it was going to be a pain trying to remember what any of these buildings were, they all looked just a bit too similar. Mebius continues, “I promised Taiga that I’d help him with some of his training.”

Ryu responded with a shrug, “Okay, sure,” He said, not really wanting to mess up Mebius’ schedule any more than he probably already had. As happy as he was to see Mebius, he felt a bit bad about just showing up like he had, whether he could control it or not. Mebius previous comment reminded Ryu that his friend had a life outside of what they saw on Earth. Sure, they all knew that, but it wasn’t something they liked to think about - at least for Ryu it wasn’t. For Ryu, it wasn’t terribly pleasant to give too much thought about how Mebius’ life would continue long after they’d all passed away. “Not that I know who that is.”

Glancing back at Ryu, Mebius explains, “Oh, Taiga? He’s brother Taro’s son,” He brings them to a platform in the building, still leading Ryu around by the hand. It was fine by Ryu, it lessened the chances of him somehow getting lost. Ryu remembered Taro, the Ultra who appeared when with the Imperializer when Mebius was supposed to leave. The day they found out that Mirai - the one who brought them all together - was Mebius, the one who they had fought alongside for over six months.

“Ah, here we are!” Mebius leads him into a room, inside of which was an Ultra, who was clearly doing some training. The Ultra was red and silver, with these sort of horns on his head. From what Ryu could recall of what Taro looked like, he could see how the two might be related. It was the horns, really.

Mebius’ exclamation catches the Ultra Taiga’s - attention. The Ultra perks up and looks over - though if he noticed Ryu, he said nothing. “Oh! Mebius, you’re here!”

Walking over, Mebius responds, “I said I’d help you, didn’t I?”

“Well yeah, but… “ Taiga rubs the back of his head, “Mr. Hikari said you might not make it. Ah, didn’t say why though…”

Ryu rolled his eyes, not that he was really sure what that would actually look like. Taiga really couldn’t be all that old, maybe a teenager still? Although, that wasn’t saying much, now that he thought about it, Mebius was a teenager, after all. Still, Taiga seemed to be younger than Mebius, or at the very least, less experienced - why else would Mebius be helping him. 

In a somehow still cheerful way, as Mebius often was, he explained, “Oh, I just had a friend drop in suddenly.”

Somehow, Taiga still hadn’t noticed Ryu. Ryu wasn’t sure whether he should be concerned about that. On one hand, a teenager, on the other hand, a teenager who one day expected to fight monsters. Well, either way, it wasn’t his problem (at least not right now it wasn’t, but some nagging part in the back of his head said that one day it might be. Ryu squashed that part down, he was not worrying about all that, nope, no thank you. This was not his instinct to help teach rookies that he developed a couple of years into being a captain rearing its head. Even if it was, he was not going to give into it. Leave the helping to Mebius, he was more suited anyway.)

Mebius helps Taiga with his training, giving pointers and tips here and there, occasionally correcting little things. Ryu just watched. He’d seen Mirai trained before - not just the training they did as a part of Crew GUYS, he recalled faintly after Ultraman Leo appeared where Mirai trained and trained - but something about this was different. Maybe it was because Mebius wasn’t the one training, maybe it was because Mebius was just helping. Ryu decided it wasn’t terribly important.

Ryu wasn’t sure how long passed, really he wasn’t even sure how to measure time here - Mirai mentioned once that their “sun” was stationary, what did they use to measure time? Hell, was it always day here? Actually, how did they measure day? If their sun was located on the planet, what was the planet orbiting around? With a quiet groan, he decided that it was all much too complicated for him and he’d leave this sort of thing to someone with more knowledge of science than him.

Anyway, after a questionable amount of time, Mebius and Taiga finally seemed to finish up. As Taiga seemed about to ready to leave, he finally noticed Ryu, confirming Ryu's earlier suspicion that he’d gone unnoticed. Taiga seemed surprised for a moment, as he examined Ryu.

Finally, he looked back at Mebius and said, “Oh, Mebius, I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“Brother?” Ryu echoed, surprised.

Mebius lets out a quiet “Huh?”, before quickly waving his hands and explaining, “Oh no! He’s not my-”

Before he could finish, Taiga noticed something, in the same manner someone might notice the time, and cut him off. “Ah! Sorry, Mebius, I have to go! I’m supposed to be home really soon and I’m gonna be late!” And with that, he rushes out of the room, past Ryu, “Thanks for helping me!”

“Oh…” Mebius mutters, “Well, I’m sure it should be fine. I’ll correct him later.”

“He… He somehow thought we were related?” Ryu wasn’t really sure what to make of that. He wasn’t entirely sure what he looked like, but it was apparently similar enough to Mebius that, by Ultra standards, they look like they could be related. “Geez, do we really look that much alike?”

Mebius takes an extra moment to examine Ryu, before giving a small nod, “I can see how he might get that idea…” After another moment, Mebius smiles, “Alright, well we should head home ourselves!”

“Home?”

“Well, you need some place to stay, so I figured you can stay with me!” Mebius explained, dragging Ryu off as he’d done before. “I hope you don’t mind…”

Ryu laughed at that, “Why would I mind? I’m the one who just showed up on you.”

\---

Taro didn’t pay too much mind when he came home for the day. It was, by all means, a normal day. Paper work, teaching, paper work. The only thing that was slightly different was, if he recalled correctly, that Taiga had asked Mebius to help him train. Mebius was always happy to help people, Taiga even more so. Mebius had a way with those younger than him, almost automatically taking on the role of a helpful older sibling. He also had a way with those older than him, somehow taking on a role of a cheerful younger sibling.

When he saw Taiga that evening - as evening as the Land of Light has, it was more of a concept that he  _ thinks _ they picked up from other planets, like many things, but he’s not entirely sure - Taiga seemed happy enough. When Taro asked how his training went, Taiga responded with a general answer, “Oh, and I found out Mebius has a brother today!”

Well that all seemed normal enough, “That’s good,” Wait… “Mebius has a brother?”

Taiga blinked, “Uh, yeah, I mean, he sure looked like it…” Taiga paused for a moment, “I had to get going, so I didn’t really get to talk much.”

That was fine. That was totally normal. Maybe Mebius just didn’t really know his brother that well and that’s why he never brought it up. Yeah, his brother was probably just outside of the Land of Light or something and that’s why this is the first Taro ever heard of the subject. Yes. That was probably it.

There were plenty of logical reasons for why Taro never knew his student had a brother.


	2. Sakomizu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A while has passed and, to the surprise of everyone, someone shows up. And no one knows what's happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, the first chapter is probably the longest chapter here. I think the last one or two are a bit longer than the rest, but I wasn’t sure what to do for most of these.

Sakomizu had lived a long life - really longer than he should have. And though a long life doesn’t necessarily equate to a good one, his life was good too. So when he finally died, in a peaceful enough sort of way. He’d skirted the edge of death enough times that he was prepared for it. He wasn’t really sure what he was expecting when he died, but somehow, he was pretty sure the floaty, dream-like, state he was currently in wasn’t it.

There was something that was sort of tugging at him, he wasn’t sure much about it, though. It seemed familiar, certainly, but he couldn’t quite place where. He followed it and followed it, and soon enough he was somewhere… unfamiliar.

And now he was on the floor.

Well, this is certainly turning out to be rather… interesting.

\---

Time was still a myth to Ryu. He had absolutely no clue how long it had been since he’d landed on the floor of Hikari’s lab. It could have been months, it could have been years. He really didn’t know, though it didn’t exactly  _ feel _ like it had been very long, not that a feeling meant much. Mebius helped him get used to the change, which was certainly an experience.

Still, they had little idea how he’d ended up here and like this. It wasn’t… bad, he was glad to be able to be with Mebius again. But it was strange. From what Ryu had gathered, a human just… becoming an Ultra like this, wasn’t normal. But they had no real idea how or why it had happened.

For the first few days, Ryu was pretty sure he looked like a lost puppy or something, almost always following Mebius around. Part of that was because Mebius kept grabbing his hand and leading him around. It really didn’t take long to encounter someone who didn’t know about Ryu - given only Mebius, Hikari, and himself seemed to have known. 

It was Taro, who had clearly heard from Taiga a few days before about Ryu, “Mebius,” Taro greeted, then turned to Ryu, “And you must be his brother.”

Ryu was pretty sure his eye twitched, or whatever that looked like, “I’m not Mi-ebius’ brother,” While he was certainly close with Mebius, somehow being called his brother just felt a bit… weird.

Beside him, Mebius waved his hands, “Oh no,” He said, “We’re not brothers!”

Taro tilted his head, “Oh, I’m sorry, Taiga had mentioned that… He must have been mistaken.”

Mebius just shook his head, “It’s fine, just a misunderstanding.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Ryu shrugged, and he was being rather honest.. Though he was initially annoyed, his annoyment died pretty quickly. That’s how his annoyance went nowadays, less conflict engaging and more brief bursts.

There was a brief, awkward silence, before Taro spoke up again, “Then he’s, uh, a friend of yours?”

That was plenty enough to make Mebius light up, “Oh yes!” Ryu could see how excited about the topic Mebius was. “Ryu’s a great friend!”

“Ryu?” Taro echoed, “Ah, didn’t you have a friend on Earth also named that?”

Ryu wondered how much Taro thought about the difference in the concepts of coincidence and relation. Then again, maybe sharing a name with someone on Earth was something of a common occurrence? Ryu really didn’t think so, given of all the names of Ultras that he’s heard, only four or five really sounded like an actual name someone on Earth might have.

Regardless, Mebius wasted no time in explaining what happened, Taro listening the entire time. It didn’t take very long to explain what had happened, because it was ultimately not that much and they knew very little about what happened.

Thankfully, at least for Ryu’s sake, not much else had happened since. Which is why he was sitting now, watching as Mebius was doing some training. He was technically resting (he’d taken a bit of a tumble while trying to work on moving around while flying the other day and Mebius refused to let him continue practicing until his bruise healed. Ryu wasn’t particularly happy about it, but didn’t feel like arguing with Mebius about it.). It was certainly interesting to watch Mebius train, for the first few minutes, at least, but at this point, Ryu was pretty bored.

He could explore, sure, but he was really in the mood to get lost, again. That was what happened last time he tried to explore on his own (It had been awkward). So he just sat there and waited, not really expecting something to happen.

And then, something happened, “Mebius,” Zoffy pokes his head in, quickly drawing attention to himself as Mebius paused his training, “I’ve found another one of yours.”

“Huh?” Mebius wondered aloud, “‘Another one of mine’?”

“Yes,” He affirmed as he practically dragged another Ultra into the room, then left. The Ultra seemed familiar, though Ryu couldn’t place where or why, because he didn’t  _ look _ familiar. It was just that he felt familiar. The Ultra looked a bit confused, though it didn’t take him long to get his bearings.

In a pleasant tone, with a smile, the Ultra spoke, “Hello Mebius, it’s been a while.”

Mebius had that shocked look on his face, the same one that he had when Ryu had appeared. That was fair, as Ryu was pretty sure he had something of a shocked look on his face, as he too recognized that voice. Really, how could either of them not?

“Captain?” Mebius asked, sounding almost as though he couldn’t believe it. Which wouldn’t be much of a surprise, though at the same time Mebius really shouldn’t be surprised. Then again, once is odd, twice is coincidence. If it happens one more time it’s a pattern.

Ryu groaned, “So this is just weird, right?”

In a way that only Sakomizu ever seemed to manage to do, he added, “It’s good to see both you and Ryu again.” Ryu couldn’t help but wonder how Sakomizu managed to recognize him so fast.

“Let me guess,” Ryu began, “You died, was in a floaty state for a while, and then woke up here?”

“More or less,” Sakomizu hummed, “Coming out of that by landing on the floor was an interesting experience.”

“Tell me about it.”

Mebius spoke up, coming out of his thoughts, “I wonder why both of you became Ultras and appeared here?” He wondered, “And you both were following a tugging feeling.”

Ryu shrugged while Sakomizu thought about it for a moment, “There must be some kind of connection,” He said, “But we don’t have enough information to determine what.”

“There can’t be that many things that could have brought us here.” Ryu frowned, “I mean, we’ve had limited interaction with Ultras.”

“But have we?” Sakomizu asked, “All of the former members of Crew GUYS have had a lot more than most have, just by working with Mirai - or Mebius, rather. Though outside of Mebius, we’ve all still had more interactions with Ultras than the average person.”


	3. George

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More new arrivals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's short, so I'm just gonna post the next one too. Also I'm impatient.

Now no matter what anyone told you, George was not terribly reckless, so really, it wasn’t like him being the third to die was that weird. After Sakomizu passed, everyone really started keeping track, they all weren’t exactly young, anymore. Ryu was the outlier, to the surprise of no one.

Even after they all left Crew GUYS to continue their lives and goals, they still kept in touch. They gave Ryu congratulations when he became captain, they all celebrated Teppei becoming a doctor together, for every race Marina had, she was always wished luck and cheered for by them. Though only Ryu and Sakomizu were still a part of Crew GUYS, they never really stopped being a team. Or maybe, if you were Konomi, it was that they never stopped being family.

But George was not Konomi and did not buy into that sentiment - if only because that sort of thing was not up his alley. Regardless, though, he supposed that he wouldn’t mind it, at least in the tired state he was currently in. Yeah, it wouldn’t be terrible. He had enough guts to admit that, even if it was rather late.

Yet as George closed his eyes and drifted off, he found himself feeling as though he was floating. There was this feeling that was tugging him off some direction and he couldn’t help but feel compelled to follow it. Deciding he had nothing to lose in doing so, George followed the phantom thread.

Now he was - not exactly falling but he wasn’t on the ground - and once his feet touched the ground, he sort of stumbled. And stumbled a bit more and ran into something. Or rather, he thinks, someone.

Upon closer inspection, this person was an Ultraman. Except he was a lot smaller than normal. Which was certainly odd. Then George notices his hands and the arms attached to his hands. Which were more red and silver than they had been before.

So then, George did what seemed to be the most sensible thing. He swore.

\---

Today was one of the days that Ryu and Mebius set aside for training. It was really helpful for Ryu, at least, because he wanted to figure out how to do Ultra things. And he finally conquered flying, if only so his former captain wouldn’t outdo him. Now they’d moved on to beam attacks. Which had only caused an explosion once, because he missed. They were only on day four of practice, it was fine.

Sometimes Sakomizu joined them, but not today, today it was just Mebius and Ryu. Things were going more or less as they ought to, at least until the door to the room opened, drawing both of their attention.

Jack was standing in the doorway, an Ultra beside him, he looked at Mebius and said, “Mebius, I found a friend of yours,” Then he walked away, leaving the Ultra still standing in the doorway.

The Ultra walks in and looks at Mebius, sighing, “Uh,  _ hola _ , Mirai?”

Ryu bursts into laughter. Of course! Of course! It was freaking George!

Mebius smiles, “George! Oh, it’s wonderful to see you!” Then he hugs George.

George stiffens for a moment, before hesitantly and awkwardly returning the hug. “It’s, uh, good to see you too.” Then he looks over at Ryu, “Is that…?”

“Hey George,” Ryu found himself grinning. “Been a while.”

“Guess we both aren’t so dead,” George managed to extract himself from Mebius’ arms, looking towards Ryu.

Ryu pats him on the back, “Sakomizu, too.”

“Seriously?”

Mebius hummed to himself in thought, “It’s odd that they’re all appearing like this…”

Ryu shrugged, “But we have no idea why any of this is happening.”

“Still, you, Sakomizu, then myself…” George noted, “Is it really a coincidence?”


	4. Marina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here comes Marina.

Marina always had good hearing and in her final days it felt like she was hearing something else. It wasn’t something normal, it wasn’t something that she’d ever heard before. Or had she? Maybe she had. It was familiar, actually, despite the fact she couldn’t place when or where she’d heard it before. Or if she had at all.

As she found herself in an odd state of consciousness, she found that this sound, clearer now, sounding more like a beautiful melody, also had a feeling to it. It tugged at her, leading her in its direction, growing ever louder. She was floating. She was floating closer and closer as the music grew louder and louder.

Then she landed on the ground, hard.

And then, something went whooshing by where her head had been a few seconds ago.

\---

The Land of Light, like many places, had it’s sort of interesting culture, which Ryu found himself learning purely by being around. It was, in a way, similar to how Mirai had to learn human culture just by being on Earth. The knowledge Mirai wasn’t human had certainly explained some of his gaps in knowledge of humans and their culture. He would have only known from stories or something similar. Ryu was never the kind of person to take a specific interest in culture, but the cheer that Mebius exuded when he talked about it was usually plenty enough reason for him to ask.

Sometimes, if you passed by groups of children, you could hear them singing some nursery rhyme or another, or they’d be playing a game. The songs weren’t much like anything Ryu was familiar with, but some of the games resembled a semblance of something he could remember from his own childhood. On some occasions, Ryu did ask Mebius about something he’d seen or heard and every time, Mebius would explain happily. There was something nice about that, even if it was odd to be the one who was being given the explanation.

What they were doing today was something like that, because Mebius decided that it was time to properly sit down and teach Ryu about the Land of Light. They were sitting in Mebius’ living room, one “evening”, Mebius having corralled George into the room and into a chair, with Ryu and Sakomizu easily willing to sit and listen. Mebius started telling them about the Land of Light.

After a while, George finally asked, “Okay, so, how come no one seems to question you just having more and more people living with you?”

Mebius perked up a bit at that, “Oh, well, it’s normal for close family in the Land of Light to live together, and since everyone seems to mistaken Ryu for being related to me, they probably just assume you and Sakomizu are also members of my family.”

Family, huh? Well, Ryu supposed that, in the end, there were worse things people could assume they were. It wasn’t even like he was terribly opposed to the idea, really. Crew GUYS had always been a sort of family to him, and as it were he was in a room with around half of those he really considered that. (It wasn’t that he didn’t care for other teams of Crew GUYS, the team that he captained. He did, it was just that they didn’t feel quite so close. Not so much family as just people he was close-ish with.) As annoyed as Ryu tended to be when people mistaken him and Mebius for brothers - Taiga was the biggest offender, for some reason - he did care for Mebius greatly, if it weren’t obvious.

Beside him, George rolled his eyes, most likely at the thought of them being family, which he would probably consider a cheesy thought. Ryu could see where he was coming from, but it really didn’t bother him too much. Though it made Ryu wonder, a bit, if it were common for families to live together, then why did Mebius live alone? There was the possibility that Mebius wasn’t particularly close with his family - Ryu could understand that - or maybe something had happened to them. For a moment, he wanted to ask, but then thought better of it.

“I suppose families are often close here in the Land of Light?” Sakomizu inquired from his seat, a bit off to the side.

“Usually,” Mebius hummed, “There are exceptions. It’s not unusual for children to live with their parents and their grandparents, plus any of their parents and grandparents siblings and their children. Sometimes a family member prefers to be more independent or just needs more room, so they’ll move out of the family home.”

Ryu couldn’t help but wonder if that was why Mebius lived alone - because he wanted to be more independent. He quickly dismissed the thought, Mebius wasn’t really the type to want to be more independent. He spent much of his time with Crew GUYS, even when he didn’t have to.

Cheerfully, Mebius continued his explanation, “Obviously orphans usually end up living alone, until they start a family of their own.” There was a sort of fondness there, as odd as it sounded. “It’s also starting to become a new trend with the younger Ultras just to live with your friends, once you’re old enough.”

Maybe that was why Mebius lived alone, maybe he was supposed to be living with friends, maybe he had been. There were plenty of reasons that could have changed. The friends could have gone back to their families or had families of their own they wanted to live with elsewhere. But wouldn’t Mebius have mentioned some friends having lived there before if that were the case?

“There’s a lot of families that don’t have grandparents, since the parents were orphaned during the war. But nowadays, those people are the parents of the children of the Land of Light.” Mebius continued his explanation, “Still, it’s not like even the orphans we have now live alone. The orphanages have plenty of children in them and there’s usually several adults there too. Generally, regardless of what your family is like, you usually live with someone, whether they’re your family or friends.”

George hummed, “Huh, you sure know a lot about all that.”

“It’s not really that unknown amongst people in the Land of Light.”

It looked like George was about to say more, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Tilting his head and looking in the direction of the door, Mebius stands up. He looks quizzically at the door, “I wonder who that is?” He goes over and opens the door, to be greeted by Ace, with another Ultra behind him. “Oh, brother Ace!”

With a small smile, Ace greets him, “Hello, Mebius,” He pauses for a moment, then gestures back to Ultra behind him, “I… think I found one of your friends.”

“Huh?”

Behind Ace, the Ultra smiles at Mebius with a wave. “Hey, Mirai,” A smile broke onto Mebius’ face, as he easily recognized the voice as Marina. For a moment, he found himself wondering once more how his friends were arriving here and how they became Ultras.

“Marina!” He welcomed Marina in and bid goodbye to Ace as he left.

Ryu and George peer over to where Mebius and Marina now stand. In an almost amazed voice, George says, “So… Marina’s here now?”

Having already had two other people appear on them, now three, Ryu just sighed, not terribly surprised. Really, you could tell him that Konomi and Teppei would be joining them and he’d honestly just consider it all par for the course. At this point, he would honestly even welcome them to be there, if not because he’d be happy to see them and be with them again, then because they were all a team, even now, and it would feel wrong not to have everybody. 

Watching the joy on Mebius’ face with Marina’s appearance told Ryu that Mebius really wouldn’t mind, either. Then again, for the longest time, Mirai had been the glue holding Crew GUYS together, until everyone else had time to stick themselves on their own. Had there not been a time when none of them could recall their bonds with Mirai and hadn’t that time brought him so much pain? Yet as much as it had hurt him, Mirai still tried to reach them, to remind them of their friendship with him. It was baffling that anything had been able to make them forget their bonds with someone as extraordinary a friend as Mirai, someone who always went so far to help them.

There was a time where Ryu had accepted to himself that one day, he’d have to say goodbye to Mirai once and for all. And that he may never truly know what day that was, that perhaps it had already come to pass and he wouldn’t realize it until the last second. Yet when he’d thought that second had come, he had awoken in the Land of Light, at Mebius’ confused face. He’d felt a little like he’d seen a ghost, at that moment, since he’d been certain that he’d die before he’d see his friend again. Ryu wondered if Sakomizu, George, or Marina had felt the same at some point before arriving here. He wondered if Mebius ever felt the same.

As Mebius resumed telling them about the Land of Light, with Marina as his newest student, Ryu couldn’t find it in himself to care.


	5. Teppei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Teppei arrives, there's a reminder that the Earth doesn't stop turning.

To the surprise of no one who knew him or his family, Teppei had gone on to become a doctor, like his father. Though he hadn’t stayed with Crew GUYS long once the monster attacks had calmed down and he was certain that he wouldn’t be leaving some empty hole, he had stayed in touch with the friends he made there. And there had actually been a few nurses and doctors that he’d given the idea to work at Crew GUYS to. Later, after the monsters had stopped appearing, towards the end of his life, and Crew GUYS had been replaced by ZAP, he couldn’t help but nudge a few over there.

Yet now it all came to an end, not that he was terribly bothered by it. He’d been rather lonely, recently, in a way that he hadn’t been okay with since before he had been working at Crew GUYS. Prior, he’d been fine with not keeping too many friends during his studies, but once he’d worked at Crew GUYS, he realized that he liked having those friends, or at the very least his teammates. But now, it was only he and Konomi left, soon to be just Konomi, he was certain.

His mind sort of slips a bit, when it happens, and suddenly, he feels inexplicably floaty. Floaty and there was something pulling at him, drawing him in a distant direction. He could tell it was far away, but he still wanted to go to it, regardless. Something about it just felt… Well it felt familiar. The closer he got, the stronger the tugging became and the more he wanted to go towards it. So he did and he kept going and going. Then, in a much more sudden manner than his entrance to the floating state, he exited.

And he landed on the ground with a bit of a groan.

\---

It was training day again and by now, Ryu had long since decided he preferred hand to hand over anything else. George, on the other hand, was probably the best at beam attacks. It wasn’t terribly surprising, he had been the team’s sharpshooter while a part of Crew GUYS, the only one capable of using the METEOR shot’s Triple Shot. Marina was the second best, her hearing helping her to some extent. It was much harder to sneak up on her than the rest of them.

Mebius was always happy to help them with the transition to being an Ultra. While things were mostly the same, there were still a few things that they had to learn. George had little problems learning to fly, much to Ryu’s silent annoyance, and the same could be said about Marina - although Marina didn’t always like the sounds from moving too fast. The adjustment though, for the most part, wasn’t too hard. Despite Ryu’s initial reservations to Mebius’ teachings, it turns out that he’s actually pretty good with it. Of course, he did seem to have some experience in that department, helping Taiga.

Speaking of Taiga, the rest of the former members of Crew GUYS had yet to meet him, barring Sakomizu who had a brief encounter with him. Some part of Ryu, the part that was still confused at why Taiga kept referring to him as being Mebius’ brother even after being corrected, wondered what conclusion that Taiga might come to when he inevitably met the rest of Mebius’ friends. Maybe he’d just assume that they were Mebius’ family, like Mebius’ neighbors probably did.

There wasn’t anything special about their practicing today, mostly just working on getting better at various things. Mebius was putting a focus on them practicing doing things while flying. The change of movement, though not entirely different than being on solid ground, was enough that sometimes you’d mess up doing something you knew how to do, just because of the slight differences.

So they went about practicing that, Mebius had found a ball that George was unsurprisingly kicking around, more or less keeping it in the air by kicking it. Marina was, at that moment, doing some stretches, which looked rather odd while she was floating. Ryu was working on not flying higher or lower when he went to do something with his hands, a tendency he was still working on.

They were interrupted, though, by a slightly exasperated looking Ultraman who’d knocked on the door and gained Mebius’ with an amazed looking Ultra behind him. The Ultra was looking around, thoroughly amazed at his surroundings. The Ultra himself was rather unusual looking, being mostly blue and silver, but with small swirls of red hidden on him.

“Oh, Mebius?” The Ultra finally noticed Mebius, yelping in shock. It brought the attention of the other two in the room, not only because of the sudden exclamation, but because to no one’s surprise, they recognized that voice.

“Teppei?” Mebius asked, with a curious tilt of his head.

Ultraman gave Mebius a look, “I figured he was probably a friend of yours,” 

George peered over Ryu’s shoulder, looking over at Teppei, “So that just leaves Konomi, huh?”

Teppei looked over at George, “Oh, George?”

With a small laugh, gesturing towards Marina, “And Marina, and me.” He pointed at himself, “Sakomizu is at Mebius’ house right now.”

“That really does just leave Konomi,”

Slinging his arm around Teppei, George grins, “So how have things been? Send any more medical people over to ZAP?”

That comment drew both Ryu and Mebius’ attention. Vaguely, Ryu noted that Ultraman had left, but that wasn’t really in the front of his mind.

“ZAP?” Ryu couldn’t help but wonder.

“Oh, right!” Marina exclaimed, “You wouldn’t know about ZAP.”

Extracting himself from George’s arm, Teppei began to explain, “A while back, monsters just… stopped appearing on Earth. Well, it happened more slowly than that, but anyway… Without any monsters appearing, no one saw the need for Crew GUYS, so it was replaced with the Zeta Astronomical Pioneers or, well, ZAP.” Neither George nor Marina had anything else to add, “The idea is to focus less on defending the planet, since there’s not much to defend it from, and instead focus on exploring space. Admittedly, not much has happened yet, it’s still pretty early in its existence. But the idea is to mainly take over some of what GUYS Spacy had been doing and then some.”

Ryu took in his words. Don’t get him wrong, he was glad that the Earth seemed to be safe, that no one had to worry about monster attacks. It was clearly lasting longer than the twenty five years of before. But somehow, he never thought he’d see a day where there would be no Crew GUYS.

He supposed, though, that no one would have expected any of them to continue living even after they had died.


	6. Konomi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last member of Crew GUYS appears and an explanation is (sort of) decided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter is here! I do have more writing about these guys I want to do, but I don’t really have much written yet. This has been fun, at the very least.

Konomi would be completely honest and say she missed her friends greatly. She was the last one still alive. First had been Ryu, to little surprise. Then Sakomizu finally passed, having lived far longer than most others. Then it was George, then Marina, and the most recent, Teppei. Now, it was just Konomi.

As drab as it sounded, she was almost looking forward to her time, if only so she could see her friends again. She didn’t even have her bunnies to keep her company, anymore. Even after she stopped teaching, she started taking care of bunnies on her own. There was something about bunnies, the very things that had brought them all together. But she’d been having a harder time taking care of them and had finally stopped a few years before.

When the time finally came, she quickly found herself surprised. She was floating, moving towards a mysterious feeling. It pulled at her, like she was connected to some kinds of string, drawing her towards it. The closer she got, the more she moved, it seemed. Finally, she reached out the hand she didn’t seem to have, trying to grasp at the light at-

She fell to the ground, having seemed to be so close to the feeling. Above her and off to the side a bit, she hears a sigh.

\---

Mebius had volunteered to help with teaching some of the younger children today. Whenever he did, he was reminded of Konomi and of her amazing way with children. These children were a bit older than the children that Konomi taught, but he found himself using what she’d taught him for younger children on these.

He liked being able to help these children, that’s why he would come and help teach them. It was a part of the same reason why he helped Taiga train. None of the rest of his friends were with him, as much as they liked to do things with him and he them, they wouldn’t be particularly helpful with teaching and helping children.

He was in the process of helping one of the children with their cartwheels, a skill he was pretty darn good at, when he noticed Seven coming in. That was odd, Seven didn’t really show up at the school, he had not child of his own and Taiga was the youngest child he was related to - unless you counted the kid that Ace was apparently the godfather of, but even then, they were both too old for Seven to be here to see now.

“Mebius!” He called, prompting Mebius to excuse himself from the child he was helping and make his way over.

“Brother Seven!” As Mebius got closer, he realized there was another Ultra behind him. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened and Mebius thought he knew who it was.

Seven had an exasperated tone when he spoke, “Mebius, I found another stray of yours.”

“Stray?” The Ultra behind him echoes, her voice confirming Mebius’ suspicions, “Do you mean me?”

A smile bursts onto Mebius’ face, “Konomi! It is you!”

“Mirai!”

After watching them for a few moments, Seven gave them a small smile, “I’ll leave you two be.” With that, he left.

There was a moment where Mebius realized what Konomi’s arrival on the Land of Light meant. “Now that you’re here,” He wondered aloud, “That means that you’re all here.”

Tilting her head, Konomi asked, “What do you mean?”

“Ryu, Sakomizu, George, Marina, and Teppei are all here too,” Mebius explained, “We’re not sure why but… Well I’ll have to explain later. I’m supposed to be helping teach the kids.” He gestures to all the children behind him, who were all spread about working on various skills.

“That’s nice of you,” Konomi smiled, “I never took you as much of the teaching type, even when you were helping out with my students.”

“It’s… nice, I guess.” Mebius said after some thought, “I like to help them learn. It helps I learned a few things from helping you with your students.”

Konomi watched as Mebius helped teach the students, as well as watching some of the students that Mebius wasn’t helping. After a bit, the students switched to working on their movements while flying, all of them floating into the sky, except one.

Both Mebius and Konomi had noticed the boy who stayed on the ground, seemingly trying to ignore his classmates. The two of them both walked over to the boy. “Is something wrong?” Mebius asked, his tone gentle.

The boy crossed his arms and pouted, looking at his feet, “No,”

“Then why aren’t you joining your classmates?”

“I… I’m no good at flying, I’ll just do terrible,” The boy said, his arms uncrossing and falling to his sides. “So what’s the point?”

“Well,” Mebius began, “Why don’t we work on practicing your flying, so you’ll get better?”

“I’ll be the only one who’s so bad that they need extra practice.”

Finally, Konomi spoke up, “Why don’t we work on it together?” She asked, “I haven’t learned how to fly myself, so that means I won’t be any good at it either.”

Looking up at her, the boy asked surprised, “You haven’t learned how to fly? But you’re like, an adult!”

Konomi laughed a little, “Well, that’s why I have to practice it, so I can do more things with my friends.” She holds her hand out to the boy, “So what do you say?”

He looks at her hand for a moment, then takes it with a smile, “Alright!”

Mebius smiled, Konomi always had a way with people, children or otherwise.

\---

It had been a while since Konomi had appeared and Mebius and all his friends were sitting at home one evening. The day hadn’t been terribly unusual or anything. Mebius had just gotten back from off of the planet and had been very excited to see his friends again. They all been greeted with happy hugs when he’d gotten back. At this point, Konomi was the only one who hadn’t more or less finished adjusting to being an Ultra and being on the Land of Light.

So as it had been a mostly normal day, they hadn’t really expected anything usual to happen. It was a surprise when Hikari came knocking, looking tired and like he hadn’t slept the night before. Which given some of the things they’d heard from Mebius, was very much a possibility. He also looked a bit… Maniacal wasn’t really the word. More like… relieved and excited.

“Uh… Hikari?”

“I think I figured out why your friends all showed up here,” Hikari said, really wasting no time. “Or at least, I sort of figured it out.”

“Really?” Mebius asked as he let Hikari in. Hikari looked at all of Mebius’ friends, the former members of Crew GUYS.

“Phoenix Brave,” He said, reminding them of the form that the eight of them took when they were fighting Empera. It was hard to explain, but it was a form that came into existence from all of them. From Mebius, from Hikari, and from the members of Crew GUYS. In that manner, it was similar to Burning Brave, except with Phoenix Brave, the humans were themselves a part of the fusion.

“What does that have to do with us becoming Ultras?” Ryu asked, crossing his arms.

“From what I’ve seen, the six of you have an odd energy that shares similarities to Mebius. I think whatever allowed the six of you to become a part of the fusion and create Phoenix Brave as a fusion of Ultras and humans instead of just Mebius and myself contributed to what turned you into Ultras when you died.” Hikari explained, “After all, what do phoenixes do?”

“They’re reborn when they die,” Sakomizu said.

Hikari seemed a bit unsure, even though he was the one proposing the explanation, “I’m not certain, there just isn’t much to go off of… But it’s the best explanation I can think of.”

Mebius looked at his friends, “Well I don’t care why they’re here or why they’re Ultras,” He decided with a smile, “I’m just glad that they’re here.”


End file.
